'42' passes test of history

MIAMI — The ball boy is 84 now, and walks with a cane, but no one else in the crowded movie theater this night knows the details of Jackie Robinson's first season in the way he does.

No one else felt Robinson's presence divide the Brooklyn Dodgers' clubhouse, heard the words spat across the field by Philadelphia's manager or saw opponents try to spike him at first base. And so no one else's healthy question before the movie, "42" carries the same weight of history.

"I've spent a while wondering if it's true, if it's honest,'' Norman Berman, the ball boy of Robinson's 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, said. "Do you know what I mean by that?''

Robinson's story as the first black man in baseball is the most important story in sports history. There's no close second. He changed baseball. He changed the country even more.

He challenged America's thinking, confronted societal boundaries and demanded people define who they were in ways that echo all these years late, assuming his movie is told capably. Honestly.

That's what the ball boy meant. That's what he's here at this theater to gauge.

"Based on a true story,'' is one of the opening lines on the movie screen, and that brought the ball-boy's fear that Robinson's story might be dumbed-down into a Disney-style fable.

It shouldn't be comfortable to watch Robinson's story in the same manner it wasn't always comfortable for the ball boy to live it that season. He was 19 then. He still had hopes to be a player himself, and had a kids' reverence for many of the Dodgers.

When those hopes faded, he moved to West Palm Beach in his 20s. He eventually started a hair-salon shop. He married Doris. They had a daughter, Alicia. They're with him at the movie, with Alicia's husband, Edward, and their daughter, Mallory.

Up on the screen, early in the movie, is one of the issues the ball boy was confronted with that season. Dodgers players are shown drawing up a petition. They don't want to play with a black player.

"That happened before I got there, but I was told there were a bunch of ballplayers who didn't want Jackie on the team,'' Berman said. "I was told Dixie Walker was their leader. I couldn't believe that. Dixie Walker was my favorite player to that point."

In ways big and small, Robinson's story resonates like that across ages, backgrounds. Mike Hill, the Marlins general manager and one of the few black executives in baseball, attended the movie. He grew up in Cincinnati, site of the poignant scene where Brooklyn shortstop Pee Wee Reese put his arm around Robinson to send a message to Reese's family up from Louisville.

Chris Valaika, the Marlins infielder sitting in the movie, grew up in Santa Barbara, Calif., just up the road from Robinson's Los Angeles. In another era, from another America, would Valaika have been as surprised as Robinson by the South's segregation in spring training?

Berman's worldview changed that season. He played catch with Robinson before games. He learned how to pivot on a throw at second base from Robinson. He also watched as opponents ran through first base regularly, trying to spike Robinson as he covered it.

"It was unbelievable, day after day,'' he said. "And Jackie was the nicest guy."

"It was terrible, him yelling that day like that, and all Jackie did was turn the other cheek,'' Berman said. "I remember that to this day, how awful it was to watch."

So many sports movies don't capture sports well, but "42" looks like baseball on the screen. It sounds like baseball. And while the main story is how Robinson changed how the game looked, a subtle theme is how he changed the speed at which it is played, too.

Chadwick Boseman, who played Robinson, isn't given a script with enough depth. But one thing he gets down is Robinson's basepath mannerisms and aggressive play. Berman remembers watching the pitcher every time Robinson reached third base.

In the end, the ball boy left the theater feeling "42" passes the test of history. It doesn't just tell Robinson's important story in an entertaining fashion. It's achieved something equally as important.